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Frances Glessner Lee
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Frances Glessner Lee
Frances Glessner Lee (March 25, 1878 – January 27, 1962) was an American forensic scientist. She was influential in developing the science of forensics in the United States. To this end, she created the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death, twenty true crime scene dioramas recreated in minute detail at dollhouse scale, used for training homicide investigators. Eighteen of the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death are still in use for teaching purposes by the Maryland Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, and the dioramas are also now considered works of art. Glessner Lee also helped to establish the Department of Legal Medicine at Harvard University, and endowed the Magrath Library of Legal Medicine there. She became the first female police captain in the United States, and is known as the "mother of forensic science".
Glessner Lee was born in Chicago on March 25, 1878. Her father, John Jacob Glessner, was an industrialist who became wealthy from International Harvester. She and her brother were educated at home; her brother went to Harvard.
As a child, Frances fell ill with tonsillitis, and her mother took her to the doctor. When the first doctor prescribed a dangerous treatment for her illness, the Glessners sought a second opinion and Frances underwent a successful surgery at a time when surgery was very dangerous and often lethal.
Frances became interested in learning more about medicine because of this experience. When summering in the White Mountains, local doctors allowed her to attend home visits with them. There Glessner learned the skills of nursing.
She inherited the Harvester fortune and finally had the money to pursue an interest in how detectives could examine clues.
Glessner Lee was inspired to pursue forensic investigation by one of her brother's classmates, George Burgess Magrath, with whom she was close friends. He was studying medicine at Harvard Medical School and was particularly interested in death investigation. Magrath would become a professor in pathology at Harvard Medical School and a chief medical examiner in Boston, and together they lobbied to have coroners replaced by medical professionals.
In 1931, Glessner Lee endowed the Harvard Department of Legal Medicine—the first such department in the country—and her gifts would later establish the George Burgess Magrath Library, a chair in legal medicine, and the Harvard Seminars in Homicide Investigation.
She also endowed the Harvard Associates in Police Science, a national organization for the furtherance of forensic science; it has a division dedicated to her, called the Frances Glessner Lee Homicide School.
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Frances Glessner Lee
Frances Glessner Lee (March 25, 1878 – January 27, 1962) was an American forensic scientist. She was influential in developing the science of forensics in the United States. To this end, she created the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death, twenty true crime scene dioramas recreated in minute detail at dollhouse scale, used for training homicide investigators. Eighteen of the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death are still in use for teaching purposes by the Maryland Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, and the dioramas are also now considered works of art. Glessner Lee also helped to establish the Department of Legal Medicine at Harvard University, and endowed the Magrath Library of Legal Medicine there. She became the first female police captain in the United States, and is known as the "mother of forensic science".
Glessner Lee was born in Chicago on March 25, 1878. Her father, John Jacob Glessner, was an industrialist who became wealthy from International Harvester. She and her brother were educated at home; her brother went to Harvard.
As a child, Frances fell ill with tonsillitis, and her mother took her to the doctor. When the first doctor prescribed a dangerous treatment for her illness, the Glessners sought a second opinion and Frances underwent a successful surgery at a time when surgery was very dangerous and often lethal.
Frances became interested in learning more about medicine because of this experience. When summering in the White Mountains, local doctors allowed her to attend home visits with them. There Glessner learned the skills of nursing.
She inherited the Harvester fortune and finally had the money to pursue an interest in how detectives could examine clues.
Glessner Lee was inspired to pursue forensic investigation by one of her brother's classmates, George Burgess Magrath, with whom she was close friends. He was studying medicine at Harvard Medical School and was particularly interested in death investigation. Magrath would become a professor in pathology at Harvard Medical School and a chief medical examiner in Boston, and together they lobbied to have coroners replaced by medical professionals.
In 1931, Glessner Lee endowed the Harvard Department of Legal Medicine—the first such department in the country—and her gifts would later establish the George Burgess Magrath Library, a chair in legal medicine, and the Harvard Seminars in Homicide Investigation.
She also endowed the Harvard Associates in Police Science, a national organization for the furtherance of forensic science; it has a division dedicated to her, called the Frances Glessner Lee Homicide School.